Unsung Heroes

By Pastor Bill

Back when I was a new teenager, I inherited my first official watch, one of my Dad’s old Timex watches. It had lived up to its slogan: it took a licking and kept on ticking. At that time, I was reading a story book and became fascinated with the American inventor Thomas Edison who took apart a watch and put it back together again. Of course, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! So, equipped with my own magnifying glass, a pair of tweezers from the bathroom medicine cabinet, and a tiny screwdriver furtively borrowed from Mom’s sewing machine, I took the watch downstairs to Dad’s workbench. There I disassembled it and reassembled it. And I felt proud of myself. The back snapped right into place, the watch band was in tact, and the watch face and its two hands looked fine. But evidently, it was missing at least one tiny but very crucial part, because I had turned a working watch into nothing more than a non-functional bracelet.   

The smallest of items are often the most necessary. The same can be said for human activity. There are vitally helpful people who often go unnoticed until they are not found in their usual places of service. At the office, a custodian; in the neighbourhood, a garbage collector; near a school, a crossing guard; in the home, a Mom or Dad; and in the church, it could be any number of unassuming individuals. Some check and mix sound levels. Some craft orders of service. Some fix the furnace. Some crunch numbers. Some develop our website. Some put up signs. Some vacuum the floors. These types are lowlighted people who live out Emerson’s quip: “a Great person is always willing to be little.”  

I think the Apostle Paul is pointing out these people in 1 Corinthians 12:22. He likens the church to a human body by describing its unity in diversity (12:12-27). Just as all the diverse parts of a single human body are necessary (12:14-21), so the functional specialization of a variety of church members is indispensable. All local church people are interdependent. No one is independent which means no one is unnecessary:

“On the contrary, those members that seem to be weaker are essential” (12:22).

Where there is seemingly less value, strength of status, or honour in the body (think of your little toe or baby finger), you actually find true value, strength and honour. Those seemingly weaker or littler in the life of the church body are the unsung heroes of the church. They’re generally comfortable in the background, often self-effacing preferring to avoid the spotlight, but they draw the gaze of God who promises to give grace to the humble (James 4:6).

I’m left to wonder if we ought to rethink how we assign importance to various tasks within the church and how we pray for various people? And I wonder when we last expressed our gratitude to “weaker” or unnoticed workers among us? The unsung heroes of the faith are likely the last to expect the heavenly Father’s words: “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things…Come and share your master’s happiness!” (Matthew 25:21). May you and I be such people.